Scientists say stick bug is world's longest insect

Oct 17, 2008 By RAPHAEL G. SATTER , Associated Press Writer

In this undated picture made available Thursday, Oct. 16, 2008 by Britain's Natural History Museum, a giant stick insect named Phobaeticus chani, meaning "Chan's megastick." is seen. Britain's Natural History Museum says a Malaysian amateur naturalist has discovered the world\'s longest insect, the more than 22-inch long "megastick." The museum says the oversized walking stick bug was discovered by Datuk Chan Chew Lun on the Malaysian island of Borneo. (AP Photo/Natural History Museum)

(AP) -- A stick bug from the island of Borneo measuring well over a foot in length has been identified by researchers as the world's longest insect, British scientists said Thursday.

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User comments : 2

I'm sorry, but back in the early '70s, right around the end of the Vietnam war, my neighbor, an Air Force colonel, brought back some furniture and other odds and ends from "country" - and along for the ride was a very large variety of walking stick. Six legged, between six inches a little over a foot in length, with a body the diameter of a normal #2 pencil. These things were yellow and green when they first arrived here - yellow bodies with green at the joints - think camouflage for living in bamboo. This same neighbor then treated his back 40 with herbicide in "US Gov't" drums (probably Agent Orange) to get rid of a stand of 8' tall Johnson Grass which had grown up in his absence - and the things mutated. I won't go into details here, but suffice it to say that they became aggressive and nearly unkillable - you had to chop them up with a hoe and still the pieces came at you...thank God they apparently underwent a fatal mutation after about 5 generations. No. This is NOT the longest insect. Those were longer and a lot scarier.